by Shannon Hale
He stopped, cocking his head in a way Ana Sofía had come to realize meant he was listening to someone talking to him through his tiny hidden earpiece. She touched her own hearing aid with a finger, and a flash of longing brushed through her that she might hear what he heard and answer the calls he got. To be a hero.
“I will come directly. And pity those who stand in the way of mighty Mjölnir!” Thor said to whoever spoke in his earpiece.
He shouldered the hammer, the action almost decapitating a nearby table lamp. Ana Sofía added a mental note to the long list she maintained in her head.
Note: Move lamp before next Thor visit. Shop for more robust style at yard sales.
“Farewell, Ana Sofía Arcos Romero, and many thanks to your generous mother for her empanadas.”
“Wait! I found your socks!” Teresa rushed in, handing him a plastic grocery bag full of knitted things.
He took the bag, put a hand on his chest, and partially bowed in thanks. Then, stepping just outside their kitchen door into the backyard, he swung his hammer on its leather strap around and around above his head till lightning fizzled and cracked. With a small boom and flash of rainbow colors, he went up and was gone.
The front door burst open.
“Is he here?” said Marco, Ana Sofía’s little brother. “I smelled that smell he makes all the way down the street!”
“Aw, pobrecito Marquito,” said Teresa. “Tío Thor se acaba de ir. Go wash your hands if you want empanadas.”
“Okay, okay,” said Marco, and he shuffled off to the bathroom.
Ana Sofía couldn’t help a creak of a smile. Tío. Uncle Thor. In Mexican culture, it was common to call adults with close relationships to the family tío and tía even if they weren’t officially family, but she’d never seen her family so quickly adopt a tío.
The front door burst open for the second time, and Ana Sofía’s father, George, rushed in, looking around wildly. “Is he here? Is Thor here?”
“He’s gone, Papi. Sorry,” said Ana Sofía.
George banged his fist into his hand. “Every time I miss him! Every single time! I hurried over the second I got your text,” he said to Teresa. He slumped into a chair, staring at the slight impression in the linoleum that Thor’s hammer had left. “Just once I want to try to lift Mjölnir.”
Ana Sofía hadn’t quite caught what he’d said, but her mother mimed lifting the heavy hammer, and Ana Sofía put it together.
“Papi…” said Ana Sofía, bringing him a plate of empanadas.
“I don’t expect to be able to lift it,” he said. Then shrugged. “Maybe just scoot it around a little.”
“How is the mall coming?” she asked.
“Mmpf,” he said with his mouth full. It was nearly impossible to read someone’s lips when they were eating. She waited for him to finish. “It will be on time. And before you ask, no, I still don’t know if there will be a sock shop.”
She hadn’t been about to ask about the sock shop—not that she wasn’t 100 percent invested in the idea and maybe sometimes prayed for it before bed (actually every night)—but she stopped herself from asking her father the more pressing question.
Hydra? Behind the new mall? It really was ridiculous. Wasn’t it?
But maybe her suspicions were dead-on and she should alert Doreen immediately to leap in and save the day. She picked up her cell, intent on texting her that very second. What if it is Hydra? Squirrel Girl will know what to do….
No. She put her cell back down, glaring at it as if the phone had insulted her and her family.25 This whole BFF thing was new for her. She’d had friends in the past, of course, but not like Doreen, not the kind so fierce and true she had no doubt the girl would leap across the Grand Canyon for her. And with past friends (or friendish sorts), Ana Sofía had made the mistake of sharing raw thoughts that were met with mockery. What if she shared her suspicions, and Doreen laughed at her? No, she wouldn’t do that, would she? But what if Ana Sofía shared, and Squirrel Girl believed her and took on the mall, but it turned out that Ana Sofía was wrong? She could imagine the look of disappointment in Squirrel Girl’s eyes, the diminished trust, the disgust even.
Ana Sofía just couldn’t risk being wrong. Best to stay silent. Best to keep these thoughts to herself.
“I remember when all this was just open farmland,” Dor Green said, surveying the black asphalt of the parking lot surrounding the new mall.
“You do love your open farmland,” said Maureen Green. “Though I don’t remember ever coming here since we’ve been residents of New Jersey.”
Doreen’s parents looked a lot like her—pale, freckled, human. Maureen had short hair that was once red, now brownish and cut in a mushroom-cap style. Dor’s hair was once also possibly red, now gone entirely, except for his coppery orange beard. Neither had a squirrel tail.26
“Prairie,” said Dor. “Prairie land. The open sky. Yes sir.”
A crowd had gathered in the lot, and the thrum of anticipation and electric energy of people waiting zapped through Doreen, too. There’d been plenty of malls back in California, but a first mall was kind of special, she supposed. This mall wasn’t even open yet. But her mother loved crowds in general and rallies in particular, and had dragged them along to take part in whatever this pre-opening mall rally thing was.
“Maybe I was here years ago as a boy,” Doreen’s father was saying. “Maybe I was part of a secret Canadian Special Forces unit stationed in New Jersey before we met.”
Doreen’s mother laughed. “Ah, yes, the infamous Canadian Boy Commandos.”
“You joke,” said Dor, “but we could wrestle a musk ox to the ground in under a minute, we Boy Commandos.”
“Mean,” Doreen said. “A musk ox does not deserve to be wrestled to the ground, even in imaginary dad stories.”
Dor grunted. “They were dishonorable musk oxen,” he said.
The three of them bounced on their feet and strained their necks, trying to see over the crowd to the temporary stage set up on the asphalt, which was bookended with two enormous speakers. Banners stretched above: one on the left read DOGS, one on the right read CATS, and one in the middle read HIP-HIP CHESTER YARD MALL HOORAY. The signs were all the same size and pushed so close together that it seemed to read DOGSHIP-HIP CHESTER YARD MALL HOORAYCATS.
A velvet rope divided the crowd in half, left side dogs, right side cats.
“Are we dogs-hip or hooray-cats?” Doreen’s father asked.
“Hooray-cats,” Doreen said, leading her parents to the right side. “In olden times, did people use to actually say ‘hip-hip hooray’?” Doreen asked her father. “Shout it out all casual and normal, like, School is canceled. Hip-hip hooray! or We got a coupon for twenty-five percent off carpet cleaning. Hip-hip hooray!”
“Why are you asking me?” he said. “You’re smarter than I am.”
“It seems like one of those old-person things,” Doreen said. “You know, like ‘be kind, rewind.’”
“Forty-seven is not old,” Dor said.
“It’s older than me,” Doreen said.
“Me too,” her mother said. “I am, however, very wise. And can tell you that those words are clearly referencing the ancient art of bad marketing.”
“It also borrows from the tradition of Unfortunate Phrases,” Dor said. He raised a hand. “And I don’t mean that negatively. I am a huge fan of Unfortunate Phrases.”
“I’m only in ninth grade,” said Doreen. “We haven’t studied Unfortunate Phrases yet.”
“How is school going, Doreen?” asked her mother. “You haven’t said much about it lately.”
“Um…” It had been going fine. She’d made a best friend. She’d joined a group of friends, even. She no longer hid in bathroom stalls at lunch or anything. But…well…it was too complicated to put into words. Ms. Schweinbein…the Squirrel Scouts…the homework she neglected in order to fight crime…that achy, half-herself feeling of hiding in plain sight…the ease and freedom of Squirrel Girl bu
ried whenever she had to go back to being Doreen…“Fine,” she said.
“Oh, good,” said Maureen.
Her relieved smile convinced Doreen she’d been right not to say any more. Telling her mother the whole truth would probably just make her unhappy. Besides, Doreen had a plan! Or sort of a plan. Last night she’d looked up Steps to Conflict Resolution online. Talking down Laser Lady had been all instinct. But working through her many Doreen Green problems might take a more academic approach.
Suddenly music erupted from the speakers—a last-century techno beat punctuated with a robotic voice saying “Yo! Yo! Here we go, dudebro!” A dozen dancers in green leotards marched onto the stage and began flapping their arms in unison. Confetti exploded, and a man in cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt leaped onto the stage and “danced” in front of the others. His moves reminded Doreen of her Commander Quiff exercise videos.
“Is that someone I should recognize?” Doreen’s father shouted to her over the music.
“Why are you asking me?” Doreen shouted back.
“Because it seems like a young-person thing.”
The music paused and the dancers froze in position.
“SHADY OAKS AND LISTLESS PINES!” the man shouted into a microphone. “ARE…YOU…READY?!”
A few people clapped. A few more let out some weak “yeah”s. Doreen started to feel bad for the guy.
“Because I’m ready,” he whispered, the microphone making his whisper super-loud and hissy. Some of the crowd visibly shuddered. It was an uncomfortable experience to be addressed in a painfully loud whisper. Now Doreen felt really bad for Mr. Cargo Shorts. And he was trying so hard.
“Yay!” Doreen called out.
A few people looked around to see if there was something else nearby worth cheering for.
“Folks, let me introduce myself,” the man said, sounding friendly and normal despite being on a stage with twelve frozen green dancers. “My name is Bryan. That’s with a Y, and you can call me Bry.”
The crowd shuffled, looked away, cleared throats.
“Hi, Bryan!” Doreen yelled.
Bryan waved in Doreen’s general direction and continued speaking. “But, hey, you aren’t here for me, are you?”
“I probably should have called him Bry,” Doreen whispered to her mom. “I mean, he just finished saying we should call him that, and then I went and yelled his whole full name.”
“It’s fine, dear,” Maureen said. “I’m sure he was happy to hear it.”
Bryan gestured, and the green-leotarded dancers grabbed some big gun-looking things, like they had ripped cannons off a pirate ship.
“Wait, what?” Doreen said. She scampered up onto her father’s shoulders. “I need—”
“You’re here for FREE STUFF!” Bryan yelled.
The leotarded cannoneers opened fire at the crowd, and dozens of cloth bundles filled the sky. Doreen reached up and grabbed one, careful not to be too phenomenally squirrelly in public.
Doreen’s father groaned. “Down, please. I’m not Thor, and you are not six years old anymore.”
“Sorry, Pop!” Doreen said, sliding off. “My squirrel-sense was tingling.”
“Is that actually a thing?”
“I don’t know. It just looked like those dancers had weapons.” She unfolded her catch. “But they were just shooting T-shirts.” She sniffed one and stuck out her tongue. “Ugh—smelly T-shirts.”
“Probably the chemicals they use in manufacturing,” said Maureen. “Remember to always wash new clothes before wearing them!”
“Gotcha,” said Doreen. She felt a little weird—kinda cotton-brained, a bit tilty. Her chest tightened, the crowd seemed to push in, and she wondered if she was developing sudden and random claustrophobia.
“I got one!” Maureen shouted, unwrapping a yellow T-shirt with the Chester Yard Mall logo on the front and the word CATS printed in large letters on the back.
“What size is it?” Dor asked.
“Too small for you,” Maureen said, pulling the shirt on over the blouse she was wearing. “I love this shirt! Nobody touch this shirt—it’s mine!”
“Whoa, okay, Mom.”
“WE GOTTA FIGURE OUT OUR MALL MASCOT, FOLKS!” Bryan called.
“I thought that was their mascot,” Dor said, opening up another T-shirt bundle to show the logo on the front. “What is it? A bearded egg?”
The Chester Yard Mall logo featured a smiley face with curly tentacle-like details coming out of the bottom. Ana Sofía had pointed out this logo to her, too, and she took an extra moment to examine it. Yep, definitely an odd choice for a mall logo.
“No one would have a bearded egg as a mascot, Dor,” Maureen said. “What even is a bearded egg? This is a happy little octopus.”
“We’ve got it down to two,” Bryan was saying. “Cats, represented by the fine people from Shady Oaks, and dogs, championed by the stalwart citizens of Listless Pines.”
A few of the high school boys from the dog side began to bark. Doreen felt the Team Cat crowd take a step back as if united in fear. Team Dog barked louder.
“Now, you already know that the schools on the winning side will get a free pizza party—”
Cheers erupted from both sides. Doreen smiled. She wasn’t really a mall person, but it was always nice when people got excited about things.
“But I’m about to RAISE! THE! STAKES!”
Someone in the crowd gasped. It wasn’t Doreen, but she appreciated the drama of the gasper.
“How far am I raising it? By one hundred dollars! Each!”
More people gasped.
“Those shirts you’ve got there are your ticket to a one-hundred-dollar gift card good at any shop in the mall!”
The crowd began to mutter and splutter and generally make confused and excited noises. By now everyone had a shirt, but there were a few extras. Small fights broke out, and people shoving and yelling and tugging on the extras.
“But, Bry, you say, what’s the catch?” Bryan continued over his microphone. “Well, folks, the only catch is that you have to be on the winning team. When we have the final vote at the mall opening in two weeks’ time, if cat wins then people with cat shirts get one-hundred-dollar gift cards.”
The dog side of the crowd booed.
“But if dog wins, then the people with dog shirts get one-hundred-dollar gift cards!”
One of the kids struggling on the ground for the extra shirts shoved the other one, pulling the shirt from his grip and running off.
“Hey!” Doreen said. “That wasn’t nice!”
“Gimme your shirt,” a pink-haired girl from the dog side shouted at Doreen. The girl already had her dog shirt on.
“Why?”
A group of people on the cat side started to chant, “Cats rule! Dogs drool!”
“Shut up!” the pink-haired girl yelled.
“I didn’t say anything!” Doreen said.
“I don’t even want your stupid cat shirt,” she said. “Dogs are going to win anyway.”
People were shouting. Those boys on the dog side were barking again, their tone becoming increasingly wolfish. Doreen’s hands squeezed into fists, and she kinda wanted to punch someone. Instead she balled up her shirt and tossed it toward a couple of people who were fighting over one, hoping to break it up—but instead several people swarmed it, elbows out, shoulders shoving.
“There can be only one winning side!” Bryan called from the stage. “To the victors go the spoils!”
“Well, he certainly isn’t helping things,” Maureen said. The rope between the two sides fell to the ground, whatever had been holding it up knocked over.
“But we’ve got one more little surprise,” Bryan shouted into the microphone, his voice booming over the speakers to drown out the noisy crowd. “You’re going to need to convince the rest of the people in your neighborhoods to vote for your side, if you really want to win. And the best way to convince people of something is…” He leaned over with a hand cupped to
his ear as if waiting for an answer from the crowd.
“Reasoned dialogue!” Doreen called out.
“That’s right,” Bryan said. “Advertising!”
“I liked your answer better,” Doreen’s father said.
One of the green-leotarded dancers marched up onto the stage next to Bryan. He was holding a new T-shirt cannon that had been spray-painted yellow and dusted with glitter.
“We have one more shirt,” Bryan said. “A golden shirt. Ooooooh. Whoever gets this one will be featured in a video on our TuberTV channel! And they will get…free! Ice! Cream!”
The crowd roared, surging toward the stage. A small boy near the front made a frightened yip at the surge and tried to run away but tripped and fell to the ground.
“Oh no,” Doreen said.
Maureen unzipped her large purse and showed Doreen—she’d packed the hoodie.
“Go,” Maureen said.
The man with the golden gun shot his shirt bullet high over the crowd, and the people began shoving toward where they thought it would land.
Only it didn’t land. Squirrel Girl leaped over the crowd’s heads, plucking the bundle from the air and landing fifty feet later on the stage.
“Whoa!” said Bryan.
The crowd still seethed and shoved. But up here out of it, Squirrel Girl’s head cleared, and she couldn’t smell the muddy, unpleasant odor of those T-shirts anymore. Squirrel Girl leaned over the front of the stage. She swatted people back with her tail, and then grabbed the fallen boy by the back of his shirt. His arms were scratched up, and when she lifted him onto the stage, he just lay down. Squirrel Girl tried to give the crowd her best you-know-better-than-that look, but it didn’t work as well on a thousand people as it did on the toddlers she babysat.27
